HyLight

The inspection of such infrastructure is vital, but the vehicles currently used are costly in energy, and contribute significantly to carbon emissions. HyLight's drones instead are capable of collecting data over hundreds of kilometers without emitting greenhouse gases, with uses including spotting methane leaks (which themselves contribute 4% of global GHG emissions).

The approach is clearly an innovative one, and this has led to the company raising impressive funding from investors including Y Combinator. This will enable HyLight to speed up the deployment of its drones to industrial scale, as well as expand to serve other sectors such as railways and large-scale environmental research.